


Bitter Conduct

by brinnanza



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:55:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4841462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Professor Harold Whistler, it seems, lives in Washington Square, directly across the park from an altogether too familiar building, and Harold can’t decide whether or not it’s Root’s idea of a joke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitter Conduct

**Author's Note:**

> More or less immediately post-Deus Ex Machina. Canon-compliant since I don't believe it's mentioned where Finch is living. Thanks to aadarshinah for the beta.

Professor Harold Whistler, it seems, lives in Washington Square, directly across the park from an altogether too familiar building, and Harold can’t decide whether or not it’s Root’s idea of a joke.

It isn’t a coincidence; he knows that much. Nothing is ever a coincidence with Root and the Machine. His apartment’s location (and its accompanying rent) already strains the credulity of his cover and it would have been so much easier, so much _safer_ to house him in one of the many short term lease buildings closer to the university where Professor Whistler teaches. 

Root has the capacity for that sort of cruelty, he thinks. She knows exactly which thread to pull to make him do her bidding, She’s done it before. It might even amuse her to know that every time he steps out of his front door and glances across the park, he’ll feel a knife twist of pain, retribution for slights both real and imaginary.

Maybe she meant it as a comfort. Something of Grace for him to keep watch over now that’s she’s been safely relocated, far from anyone who would do her harm and farther from Harold’s longing (masochistic, if he’s honest) gaze. The god in Root’s ear has passed on the values he’d taught it, softening the sharp edges of a woman still so capable of violence, but maybe also capable of something like kindness.

The apartment is empty for now, he can see through binoculars from his kitchen window, but it’s an excellent apartment in a highly desirable location, and it’s only a matter of time--days, probably--before someone else moves in, erases every lingering trace of the woman he loved. Still loves, so acutely that every flash of red hair in the park makes his breath catch painfully for a fraction of a second.

He doesn’t think he could bear to watch that happen.

If he were still Harold Finch -- or Wren or Crane or Partridge or even Martin (oh, how he longs to be Harold Martin again, even for a moment) -- he could just buy the apartment or, hell, the whole building, keep out anyone who doesn’t remember morning sunlight spilling across an easel like a spotlight, watercolor brushes in a mason jar in the sink, vanilla ice cream in January.

But he’s Harold Whistler, visiting university professor. No real estate holdings, no secret accounts, no headquarters hidden away in an old, abandoned library. Just an empty, impersonal studio apartment in a neighborhood he shouldn’t be able to afford and a stack of papers that needs grading.

Just Harold.

There’s the click of nails on the tile floor somewhere behind him, then Bear pushes his nose into Harold’s hand, his whole body pressing close.

“All right, all right,” Harold says to the dog and sets the binoculars down on the sideboard. He allows himself one more glance at the door across the park.

Whatever Root intended with this address, it’s cruelty, not kindness, that results.

He pulls the curtains closed.


End file.
